IT Pro Ranking: IPS and IDS

Network-based intrusion-prevention and -detection products play a significant role in today’s enterprise because of their ability to detect and block attacks and alert security teams to suspicious traffic. We invited IT professionals who use, or have used or evaluated, network IPS/IDS products in the past 12 months to participate in a vendor evaluation survey; 458 IT pros responded. We asked them to rate network IPS/IDS vendors in two ­categories: general performance and technology-specific features.

Eight vendors had a sufficient number of respondents to receive a full evaluation. They are Check Point Software Technologies, Cisco Systems, HP/TippingPoint, IBM/ISS, ­Intel/McAfee*, Juniper Networks, McAfee/NitroSecurity* and Snort running on a ­customer’s own hardware.

IBM, which acquired IPS vendor ISS in 2006, earned a first-place rating for both overall performance and technology-specific features. Check Point and Cisco were close ­behind in both categories. The report that follows has the full details of each vendor’s scores as rated by IT users.

* We listed Intel/McAfee and McAfee/NitroSecurity separately in this survey. That’s ­because the evaluation period for this survey was from June 2011 to June 2012. During part of that evaluation period, Intel/McAfee and NitroSecurity had their own IPS products. McAfee then acquired NitroSecurity at the end of November 2011. (R5190812)

Survey Name InformationWeek 2012 Network IPS/IDS Vendor Evaluation SurveySurvey Date June 2012Region North AmericaNumber of Respondents 458Purpose To determine preference for vendors supplying network-based intrusion-prevention and intrusion-detection products to enterprise IT organizations.Methodology InformationWeek surveyed business technology decision-makers at North American companies. The survey was conducted online, and respondents were recruited via an email invitation containing an embedded link to the survey. The email invitation was sent to qualified InformationWeek subscribers. Individual evaluations were conducted for ­vendors whose products have been used or evaluated in the past 12 months by 37 or more respondents.Respondents were asked to evaluate only those vendors/products for which they reported recent use or evaluation.